Poetry Sunday: A Wedding

We lost another poet last week. James Tate, a much-honored American poet, left us much too soon at the age of 71. He was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award, the Tanning Prize, a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Poetry, among many other recognitions of his unique talent.

His poems were variously described as tragic, comic, ironic, absurdist, hopeful, lonely, haunting, and surreal, and perhaps they were all that. I can't personally claim any special knowledge or insight into his work, but I do like what I've read. I particularly liked this one. It was published in 1991.

A Wedding

BY JAMES TATE
She was in terrible pain the whole day,
as she had been for months: a slipped disc,   
and there is nothing more painful. She
herself was a nurse’s aide, also a poet   
just beginning to make a name for her   
nom de plume. As with most things in life,
it happened when she was changing channels   
on her television. The lucky man, on the other   
hand, was smiling for the first time
in his life, and it was fake. He was
an aspiring philosopher of dubious potential,   
very serious, but somehow lacking in
essential depth. He could have been
an adequate undertaker. It was not the first   
time for either of them. It was a civil
service, with no music, few flowers.   
Still, there was a slow and erratic tide
of champagne—corks shot clear into the trees.
And flashcubes, instant photos, some blurred   
and some too revealing, cake slices that aren’t   
what they were meant to be. The bride slept
through much of it, and never did we figure out   
who was on whose team. I think the groom   
meant it in the end when he said, “We never
thought anyone would come.” We were not the first   
to arrive, nor the last to leave. Who knows,   
it may all turn out for the best. And who
really cares about such special days, they   
are not what we live for.

               ~~~

 "And who really cares about such special days, they are not what we live for." That's true, I think. The important thing is not what happens on "such special days" but what happens on all those ordinary days that follow. That seems a perfect insight, a perfect summing up of the event that we call A Wedding.

Comments

  1. CarmenJuly 12, 2015 at 1:19 PM

    It sounds defeatist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dorothy BordersJuly 12, 2015 at 5:02 PM

      That's one way of viewing it, I suppose. Another adjective that might apply is ironic. How ironic that such a "special day" passes by in a blur and turns out to be - perhaps - not really special, not really the thing that we remember at all.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...
Read more

The Investigator by John Sandford: A review

Image
  I have read a few of John Sandford's books in the Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport. This book is a literal offspring of that series. It's the first in a series featuring Davenport's adopted daughter Letty Davenport. Letty is in her mid-20s and a graduate of Stanford. She works for a U.S. senator named Christopher Colles in a desk job but she's bored with her assignments. Then the senator offers her a chance to go into the field as a liaison between his office and the Department of Homeland Security.  In her first assignment in that position, she is sent to Texas along with DHS investigator John Kaiser to try to find out what is happening in regard to thefts of crude oil. The senator is not so concerned about the lost oil but wants to know where the money from its sale is going. Who is selling the oil and what they are doing with the profits? The suspicion is that a particularly nasty militia group led by a woman is involved. Letty and Kaiser head out to Texas, de...
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...
Read more